Chas Harvey (Photo by Bob Turton photography)
Reviewed by Madison Mellon
The Actors’ Gang
Through November 15
In an era that often feels like satire made real, clowning might be the most honest form of political theatre left. Arrest the Clowns, the latest offering from The Actors’ Gang, leans into that notion with enthusiasm: a chaotic, anarchic mashup that attempts to skewer everything from artificial intelligence to fascism, capitalism, and billionaire greed. This is a compelling approach: in an absurd world, the only sensible response may be absurdity. Yet despite glimpses of wit and inventiveness, Arrest the Clowns never finds the focus or discipline to land a solid hit. The result feels less like a finished production and more like a workshop of provocative fragments that never cohere.
To summarize or describe the plot, such as it is, proves a challenge. Ostensibly, the show follows a “freedom squad of buffoons who will stop at nothing to take down the elusive artificial intelligence LOLA”. For a brief stretch, LOLA’s voice delivers snarky, profane commentary that suggests a gleeful satire of tech culture, but she soon vanishes and her narrative thread dissolves with her. The rest of the performance unfolds as a free-associative collage of sketches, parables, and rants, stitched together with little connective tissue. The moment the play starts sinking its teeth into some pertinent issue, it moves on and becomes unmoored once again.
Individual moments show potential. Cihan Sahin’s Dalvador Sali, a manic storyteller of morbid animal fables, is clearly an experienced clown and is appropriately theatrical. But his parables repeat the same structure ad nauseum, never evolving or deepening the conversation. Chas Harvey’s Good Reverend Doctor MLK Ultra, tasked with killing baby Hitler only to decide to raise him better instead, suggests an intriguing riff on moral responsibility and nurture versus nature. But these scenes, like much of the piece, are the beginnings of ideas that never reach their conclusion.
It’s not a matter of talent or experience: The cast certainly has seasoned performers who know their way around physical comedy and direct audience play, and The Actors’ Gang has been producing this type of work since 1981. This ultimately makes it all the more frustrating that this play is not more incisive and provocative — all of the necessary tools are there. What’s missing is a clear dramaturgical spine. The show wants to be a sprawling political lampoon but ends up feeling like an inside joke: fun for those creating it but rather bewildering to watch.
Arrest the Clowns doesn’t lack ambition and has a palpable desire to comment on the chaos of our times. But even anarchy needs architecture. With a stronger directorial hand from Chas Harvey and a willingness to sharpen its targets, this could evolve into the biting piece of political clown theatre it wants to be. For now, it remains an unformed tangle of ideas: occasionally funny, sometimes striking, but ultimately trapped in its own whirlwind.
The Actors’ Gang, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City. Thurs. 8 p.m.; Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. 2 & 8 p.m.; Sun 2 p.m. https://theactorsgang.com/ Running Time: approximately 2 hours, including some pre-show performance, with no intermission.
